Actually, most skills aren't that hard to acquire. Many of them are techniques runners only come to understand through experience, like how Special Week instinctively uses another horse girl's body to reduce wind resistance. Trainers don't normally teach this, not because it's impossible, but because they don't fully grasp the mechanism behind it.
However, if a trainer does understand how it works, they can explain it directly to their racehorse and accelerate the learning process. That's exactly what Hayato does. Instead of waiting for his horse girls to discover these techniques through countless races, he guides them straight to the answer.
Other trainers, who don't know the horse running-style, can only focus on conventional training, raising stats and hoping experience fills in the gaps. In that sense, Hayato isn't breaking the rules. He's simply optimizing his horse girls' potential by understanding the game's mechanics and translating them into real-world racing logic.
Ok, back to story.
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King Halo followed, jogging to catch up. "Um, Suzuka, why are you walking so fast?"
"What is it?" Silence Suzuka stopped and looked at her timidly, her ears perking forward.
"Um, that, thank you." King Halo's face reddened slightly. She was certain no one could see in the dark now.
"It's nothing. Time to go back."
King Halo suggested, "Then let's go back together. You're also in Ritto Dormitory, right?"
"Hm? Go back together?" Silence Suzuka blinked.
"We're on the same team and in the same dorm building. Isn't going back together natural?" King Halo asked back, her tone matter-of-fact.
King Halo found it somewhat strange now. Clearly at the same school and in the same dorm building, yet they'd hardly seen each other.
King Halo felt Silence Suzuka was too marginalized. Her presence was so low it was almost like she wasn't there at all. How does someone even manage that?
"Then, okay." Silence Suzuka didn't refuse.
Special Week hadn't come yet. Among her classmates, she really had no friends. She was only relatively close to Taiki Shuttle because they were former teammates.
Morning
Sunlight streamed through the dorm window, painting stripes across the floor. King Halo had been awake for over an hour already, and she'd spent most of that time in front of the vanity mirror.
She reached behind her head, gathering her naturally curly, wavy shoulder-length hair. Her fingers worked the red bow into place, adjusting it once, twice, three times until the loops sat perfectly even. Too loose and it'd fall out during training. Too tight and it'd give her a headache by noon.
There. Perfect.
She picked up her lip gloss, the expensive kind, the type that cost more than most horse girls spent on a week's worth of meals. Worth every yen. A first-rate horse girl needed first-rate presentation. She applied it carefully, pressing her lips together, then leaned closer to the mirror to check the color in the morning light.
The reflection staring back at her looked good. No, better than good. She turned her head left, examining her profile. Then right. The bow caught the light just so. Her hair fell in those effortless waves that actually took fifteen minutes of careful brushing to achieve.
She nodded to herself. Nothing out of place. Nothing that would embarrass her on the training grounds.
After one final check, she grabbed her sportswear from the chair and pulled it on. The fabric settled comfortably against her skin, familiar and well-worn but immaculately clean. She'd washed it herself last night, dried it, folded it with precise corners.
She stepped back from the mirror, taking in the full picture. Posture straight, chin up, that natural confidence in her stance. She smiled.
"Today I'll also be a first-rate self."
"Can't eat anymore, Urara can't eat anymore..."
The mumbling came from the other bed. King Halo glanced over.
Haru Urara lay sprawled across her mattress, one arm dangling off the edge, drooling onto her pillow. The blanket had gotten twisted around her legs at some point during the night. Her red hair stuck up in about fifteen different directions.
King Halo walked over, her footsteps soft against the floor. "Urara, time to get up."
"No... I don't wanna eat anymore..." Urara turned over, somehow managing to pull the tangled blanket even tighter around herself. Her face scrunched up like she was fighting off someone trying to force-feed her in her dreams.
King Halo sighed. This was the third time she'd tried waking her roommate this morning.
"I say, how long are you going to sleep?" She grabbed the edge of the blanket and yanked it clean off in one motion.
The sudden cold air hit Urara like a bucket of water. She jolted upright, her eyes flying open. "Wha—huh?!"
She rubbed at her face, squinting against the bright sunlight streaming through the window. It took her a few seconds to register where she was, what time it was. Then her eyes went wide.
"Oh no! Is it already this late?" She twisted around to look at the clock on the wall, nearly falling off the bed in the process. "Why didn't Halo-chan wake me up?!"
She scrambled out of bed, her feet tangling in the sheets still wrapped around her ankles. She stumbled, caught herself on the desk, then lunged for her uniform hanging on the closet door.
"I already called you many times." King Halo crossed her arms, watching Urara hop around trying to get her socks on. "Three times, to be exact."
"I didn't hear anything!" Urara protested, finally getting her sock on and immediately reaching for the other one.
"I know. You were too busy fighting off dream food."
Urara's face flushed red, but she didn't have time to argue. She grabbed her jacket, shoved her arms through the sleeves.
King Halo was already heading for the door. A first-rate horse girl was never late, and she wasn't about to start now.
Behind her, she could hear Urara still scrambling around, muttering about alarm clocks and unfair roommates and why did morning have to come so early.
King Halo smiled to herself as she stepped into the hallway.
---
*As usual, the illustration is on the side. King Halo wakes up Haru Urara, who is still sleepy.*
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